white, blue, green, yellow, and red. ;e LEDs are sturdily soldered to a PC board and come with heavy-duty
power leads.

Take o ; the stock headlight pods and
drill a 9/64-inch (about 3.5mm) hole
diagonally from the base into the
back of the pod.

Route the wires through the back, then install the leads
into the plug housing. Be careful with the polarity—if you
have any doubt about which two of the three slots to use,
compare it to a servo or power harness plug.

;e 12 LEDs fit nicely in
the pod; press the front
and rear parts together,
then clip them onto
the Baja.

LIGHT IT UP!

Using a dedicated LiPo pack to
power the lights makes a lot
of sense if you don’t want to
take any juice away from the
servos. ;e Killer RC headlights
are easy; they can work with
any DC power source from 3V
to 10V—easily in the range of
a 1S to 2S LiPo pack. But the
Sunshine Systems Ground
E;ects kit uses 4V to 7.2V, and
they strictly say not to exceed
7.2V for input. ;at means
a 1S pack won’t do it (not
enough volts) and a 2S pack
will be too much. ;e solution
is to use a voltage regulator
to step down the voltage
somewhere in between. You
can pick one up from your local
hobby shop, which range in
price from about $5 for a basic
model to about $20 for a fancy
programmable one.

MOUNTING THE GROUND EFFECTS

Adding a set of headlights to a Baja adds some coolness to the buggy, but we really wantedit to turn heads. We pulled out a set of Ground E;ects LED strips from Sunshine Systemsto mount onto the Baja. Each of the two waterproof strips has eight LEDs mounted to it and 3Madhesive on the back to let you stick them anywhere. ;e controller box that comes in the packagelets you use a wireless remote to choose one of 16 colors and choose the light behavior, be it solid,flashing, strobing, or even fading from color to color.

2

;ere are two good places to mount the strips, either facing down on
the upper rim of the chassis on each side or facing out on each side of
the chassis. If facing down, you’ll need to use zip-ties to secure the
strips. Mounting on the sides of the chassis is just a peel-and-stick
a ;air.

PLUGGING IT ALL IN

We want to power it all from a single
free channel port from our receiver.
;is is where a couple sets of servo

Y-harnesses will come in handy. Take the two
leads from the headlights and plug them into a
Y-harness. Now, take the lead from the Ground
E;ects control box and plug it into another
Y-harness. Plug the first Y-harness into the
remaining open jack on the second one—now
all the lights are connected to one plug, which
can go into an empty receiver channel. Make
sure to use more zip-ties to clean up and tuck
away the wiring.

3

WRAP;UP

All it takes is about half-an-hour to transform
your dull, dirty o;-roader into an eye-catching
piece of art that will win you awards, instantly
place you on the podium of every race you
enter, and make you rich and popular. Okay,
maybe not, but it will give your Baja a bit more
coolness than it had 30 minutes prior. As if we
need any other reason to trick out our rides...

Take the connector end of each strip and plug them into the Y-harness that comes with the Ground E;ects kit.